Charting JD Vance’s Expected Lies in Detroit

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Donald Trump and JD Vance have spent almost two weeks spouting lies and spreading misinformation about ongoing hurricane response efforts. As Vance arrives in Detroit, the home of the Motown hit machine, he’s guaranteed to start spinning up his old favorites to lie about Kamala Harris’ record of reshoring American jobs from abroad. Vance won’t hesitate to overplay his hand by mixing old lies with new. Here’s what his audience should expect: 

CLAIM: Storm victims will receive only $750 from FEMA.

• FACT: FEMA’s disaster relief program does offer victims $750, but it’s not FEMA’s only program. Hurricane survivors can apply for many others.

CLAIM: FEMA is running out of money because it is supporting migrants.  

• FACT: Washington Post headline: “No, Biden didn’t take FEMA relief money to use on migrants — but Trump did”

CLAIM: Trump and Vance would have had a better hurricane response.

• FACT: Several Republican governors in southeastern states hit by Hurricane Helene have praised the Biden-Harris administration’s response.
• FACT: JD Vance went to a fundraiser in Florida the day before Hurricane Helene made landfall. 
• FACT: Trump withheld disaster aid from regions that voted against him, demanded personal, public gratitude from Governors requesting aid, wanted to use a nuclear weapon on a hurricane, altered a hurricane trajectory map with a sharpie, and tossed rolls of paper towels to hurricane survivors.

CLAIM: Kamala Harris wants to ban gas-powered cars.

• FACT: The New York Times, Politifact, Factcheck.org, and NPR agree: there is no gas car ban. This is a line underwritten and sponsored by Trump and Vance’s Big Oil donors. The Los Angeles Times headlined their editorial on the topic: “Trump and oil companies are lying to you about electric cars to serve their own interests.”

CLAIM: Kamala Harris’ policies will mean fewer jobs for Michigan.  

• FACT: Vice President Harris cast the tie-breaking vote for the clean energy plan that “encouraged onshoring of clean energy industries,” and has created more than 330,000 jobs.

• FACT: A recent University of Michigan study of current EV plants found that EV production requires three times as many employees as traditional auto plants. Investing in EV production creates good-paying manufacturing jobs.

• FACT: JD Vance has refused to support a $500 million grant to upgrade a GM factory in Michigan. 
• FACT: Detroit News headline: “History casts doubt on Donald Trump’s auto industry promises”
• FACT: The Detroit News titled a column by Chad Livengood, “Trump, Republicans boxed in on beating China in EV war”

• FACT: General Motors’ executive vice president for manufacturing says that EV manufacturing will require as many employees as gas-powered vehicles.
• FACT: Clean energy jobs are growing at double the rate of overall jobs, and their unionization rates are higher than those of the broader energy industry. 

• FACT: Despite Trump’s repeated lies about “saving” the U.S. auto industry, the U.S. auto industry lost more than 86,000 jobs under Donald Trump.  
• FACT: Trump’s first term cost Americans an estimated 1.1 million jobs; now Trump’s Project 2025 agenda is plotting an “all-out war” on clean energy that would destroy 1.7 million jobs and cause $320 billion a year in damage to the U.S. economy.

CLAIM: Kamala Harris’s policies will send jobs to China.  

• FACT: While Donald Trump was president, his hostility towards the clean energy industry allowed China to pull ahead in EV and clean energy manufacturing. 
• FACT: Bloomberg headline: “The Offshoring of U.S. Jobs Increased on Trump’s Watch”
• FACT: Trump’s dangerous agenda would, according to the New York Times, “end up helping China, economists say, by jeopardizing hundreds of billions of dollars in manufacturing investments that have already been made in the United States and sending that work back to other countries, including China.”
• FACT: Mark Zandi, the chief economist at Moody’s Analytics, says that Trump’s promise to repeal the clean energy plan “would be a blow to manufacturing.” … “China would certainly benefit.”